Joined: 05 March 2017Posts: 844Location: I've been where Aragorn hasn't, but I now live in a cross between Hobbiton and Rivendell.Country:Gender: Male

Was notified of delivery to the bookstore Wednesday. Picked it up yesterday. Have now read it (HarperCollins hardback version).

Was it worth it? Yes. But I freely confess to being a JRRT nerd and completist.

Christopher Tolkien himself states on page 11-12: “But this book does not offer a single page of original and unpublished work. What is then the need, now, for such a book?” “[HoME) was also a history of the changing literary conceptions in the passing years; and therefore the story of Beren and Lúthien is spread over many years and several books.” And compared to “The Children of Húrin” a far greater proportion of detail is found in the long poem relative to prose sources.

The first block is from “The Tale of Tinúviel”, from the “Book(s) of Lost Tales” era of HoME.Beren is a Gnome (Noldo); Tinwelint and Gwendeling instead of Thingol and Melian; the demon-cat Tevildo phase (predecessor of Thû / Sauron and the Isle of Werewolves); no Nargothrond, no Felagund (only later Finrod), Celegorm or Curufin. About 49 pages.

Then excerpts from “Sketch of the Mythology”, “Quenta Noldorinwa”, and most extensively of all “Lay of Leithian”. About 127 pages. Beren is now a man, son of Barahir, and things resemble the Silmarillion much more.

Then commentary on and excerpts from “Quenta Silmarillion”, about 20 pages, and return to the “Lost Tales” era as only there was anything said of the time after Beren and Lúthien returned to M-e from the Halls of Mandos, about 15 pages.

And at last in the Appendix revisions to the “Lay of Leithian” (17 pages) and a list of names (12 pages).

Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

_________________"It is a gift that I bring you from the Lady of Rivendell" answered Halbarad. "She wrought it in secret, and long was the making. But she also sends word to you: 'The days are now short. Either our hope cometh, or all hopes end.'"

Last edited by Gandolorin on June 2nd, 2017, 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Joined: 04 November 2005Posts: 18124Location: In a pudle on Naboo with dragon kind and ents and Jedi and wolves living in the Last Homely House!
Gender: Male

Lol actually that sounds very fascinating! I'm really looking forward to getting it, I'll have to wait, however, until I have aome extra spending cash. Things right now, financially, are tight but in a good way. We just have to be very wise with our money.

Joined: 05 March 2017Posts: 844Location: I've been where Aragorn hasn't, but I now live in a cross between Hobbiton and Rivendell.Country:Gender: Male

Surprisingly, a German translation will be available on 10 June 2017! Considering that poetry makes up perhaps half of the book, an interesting decision by Germany’s JRRT publishers, Hobbit Press / Klett-Kotta. Of course there is much information about details in the Lay of Leithian, but poetry is about the most fiendishly difficult matter to translate from any language into any other language.

Only the first two “Lost Tales” volumes of HoME were ever translated into German, as far as I know (UT was also translated). No wonder, considering volume 3 was “The Lays of Beleriand”, the absolute bugbear (eh??? Wiki: “A type of Hobgoblin!!!”) for any translator – only topped by sections dealing in professional philological terms with arcana of translation from Westron into English. And the real 9000-pound Gorilla in LoB was “The Lay of the Children of Húrin”, being in alliterative verse. I don’t know how far this type of poetry was ever common to other northern Germanic languages and dialects, like Old Norse (Old Icelandic) – and never mind languages and dialects spoken by more southerly Germanic tribes, with whom the Romans had contact – say at the time of the composition of Beowulf, nor whether such a hypothetical poetic tradition survived as long as it did in Old (“Anglo-Saxon”) and Middle English. There is the term “Stabreim” in German which is equivalent to alliteration, but as to its popularity and distribution over the centuries – no idea.

_________________"It is a gift that I bring you from the Lady of Rivendell" answered Halbarad. "She wrought it in secret, and long was the making. But she also sends word to you: 'The days are now short. Either our hope cometh, or all hopes end.'"

For a Germanic language branch sampling [some links may be broken], though as expected, when we go back in time, the notion of "what survived" comes into play.

Quote:

"The Alliterative Revival is a term adopted by academics to refer to the resurgence of poetry using the alliterative verse form in Middle English between c. 1350 and 1500. Alliterative verse was the traditional versification of Old English poetry; the last known alliterative poem known before the revival was Layamon's Brut, which dates from around 1190.

Opinion is divided as to whether the reappearance of such poems represents a conscious revival of an old artistic tradition, or merely signifies that despite the tradition continuing in some form between 1200 and 1350, no poems have survived in written form. Major works of the Alliterative Revival include William Langland's Piers Plowman, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and the works of the Pearl Poet: Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Cleanness, and Patience." Wikipedia

Not that I trust Wikipedia. I've read too many of their Tolkien pages for that! So let's say, if there truly is a divided opinion here, the point is echoed. In short the world is big and complicated, even much much much bigger than some of my posts!

The Encyclopedia Britannica notes some very general dating here...

"The introduction of rhyme, derived from medieval Latin hymns, contributed to the decline of alliterative verse. In Low German, pure alliterative verse is not known to have survived after 900; and, in Old High German, rhymed verse was by that time already replacing it. In England, alliteration as a strict structural principle is not found after 1066 (the date of the Norman-French conquest of Britain), except in the western part of the country. Although alliteration was still very important, the alliterative line became freer: the second half line often contained more than one alliterating word, and other formalistic restrictions were gradually disregarded. The early 13th-century poetry of Lawamon and later poems such as Piers Plowman, Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight, and The Pearl use end rhyme extensively."

worded exactly as in Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, incidentally.

For a Norse intro, maybe see Christopher Tolkien's introduction to his father's Sigurd.

Joined: 05 March 2017Posts: 844Location: I've been where Aragorn hasn't, but I now live in a cross between Hobbiton and Rivendell.Country:Gender: Male

That "Die Legende von Sigurd und Gudrun" was translated into German is not to be wondered at, as it is the form of an older layer of tradition which ended up in the “Nibelungenlied”, which is much more front and center in Germany as a kind of national epic that Beowulf is for England. There is an additional short chapter “on translation” trying to explain “Stabreim” to modern Germans. And the German book is much more voluminous than Christopher T’s original, as it contains the original alliterative poem with its German translation on the facing page – doing its best to also alliterate! As per Wiki, the English original S&G is 384 pages, while my German translation is 560 pages. My B&L is 288 pages, while the German translation is stated as 320 pages. So it is unlikely that the “Lay of Leithian” poetry was translated in the manner of S&G.

_________________"It is a gift that I bring you from the Lady of Rivendell" answered Halbarad. "She wrought it in secret, and long was the making. But she also sends word to you: 'The days are now short. Either our hope cometh, or all hopes end.'"

I haven't gotten my copy yet and I'm sad about that. I need to get it soon.

_________________

♥In a poly relationship with Kili and Tauriel♥Shh...tell no one.And as he looked into her eyesWithin the auburn of her hair The trembling starlight of the skies He saw there mirrored bright and fairDaughter of Marida and Thorin

Joined: 04 November 2005Posts: 18124Location: In a pudle on Naboo with dragon kind and ents and Jedi and wolves living in the Last Homely House!
Gender: Male

Same here. I had planned on pre-ordering it but shortly before I was going to I had a change in my work situation and though I much prefer my current situation I do have a lot less income so i have to be very careful with my spending.

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